That is all.

I remember you from class. A wonderful girl who opened herself to me and never anyone else before and perhaps never after. Someone who didn’t seem helpless nor a whore. A reserved girl who actually wore clothes instead of slutwear. Someone I could be with, but someone I didn’t understand. You always had a guy around, I thought I knew to stay off. I was never sure. I hung out with you, met your parents, tried to know you but I always felt so distant.

The desire was there but the spark to light this inferno was not. I could never understand my emotions. We graduated school, I went to being a total shut in and you disappeared from my life. I went off to school and you went to California. I learned but always felt lost. I longed and you seemed long gone.

How long and wrong I was.

Forced into things you didn’t want to do. Met with some guys who weren’t like me. Raped by one I thought to be my best friend. Impregnated without the desire to have a child. Moved around by circumstance. All while I sat from the sidelines wondering about girls I would never have.

In the end I was just too much of a coward. Too afraid of my own feelings. Too afraid of confronting anyone. Too hateful to forgive myself, but now I just live with the memory of saying three words could have changed your life and saved you from all this.

“I love you…”

Dire hatred,

Zero Serra Serenity – Shut-in geek

Ouran Host Club:
I am not a completely masculine dude and I find myself watching plenty of Soujo anime in my spare time between mainlining Gundams (the older ones) and ultra-violent stuff. Ouran High School Host Club was recommended to me by an Australian friend who’s into this stuff more than I am (he wears Salior Fukus to cons).

The first thing that hits me when watching this series are the character designs reminding me of something CLAMP would do. While the entire cast of characters doesn’t fall under the bishonen category just about every group including that is represented. Haruhi Fujioka is a girl mistaken for a guy who racks up a massive debt breaking something and must work to repay that debt. While it’s obviously been done in other series (He is my Master comes to mind), the use of a cross dresser as the lead is it’s point of originality. For characters there’s the prince, the badass, the silent, the incest twins and the shotacon but the characters are surprisingly well rounded for being a stereotype. As a turn off to me the shonen-ai theme seems to run thick with characters constantly fawning over each other and themselves to the point it gets rather bland by episode three. With the exception of Haruhi the entire female cast feels incredibly flat; as most end up as one episode girls without real stories and feel like they’re all the same girl with a different head. In fact only one girl has a different shape and she appears for a total of ten seconds. On the other hand while this does fall under the category of reverse harem it doesn’t take the traditional role of focusing on the relationship between the main character (Haruhi) with the other characters and instead it focuses on the characters themselves and not just the character and the lead.

That being said the humor that the series sells itself on is rather stable and sudden. Even when situations get serious at times a quick comedy jab at the wrong time keeps you from thinking about the drama too much. While characters seem to fit a common mold for this sort of thing they writers seem to find new and interesting ways to make them funny. Unfortunately towards the second half of the series the jokes begin to stop being funny. This isn’t because it’s reusing the old jokes since it doesn’t, the new humor just falls off as not being as creative. That being said most of the drama in the series is totally forgettable with most story arcs only consisting of one episode.

The overuse of roses as a backdrop whenever someone is bragging does get quite old but characters look alive. However, animation does seem to have some corners cut when characters get farther away from the “camera”. Otherwise, it’s solid, bright and colorful and characters close up seem exceptionally detailed.

I should probably make a quick mention that since I don’t know Japanese and hate reading subtitles I watch it dubbed unless absolutely necessary. In the case of this series generally the voice actors work. I’ve heard a number of complaints about how Vic Mignogna is the dealbreaker for the series but that’s not the case. Even at 48 years old and well over 6′ tall he does his best work with the eccentric types. I will say that Mitsukuni (Luci Christian) is probably a little too feminine and Haruhi (Caitlin Glass) isn’t deep enough for the roles they have but you get used to it and it fits well. The rest of the cast is quite pleasing. Music is nicely varied between pop, light rock and instrumental backgrounds featuring a Victorian theme. Weirdly the opening and closing songs are redone for the English release but unlike previous attempts at this (say Sailor Moon) this one is actually worth it’s own salt to the effect I didn’t even know it wasn’t the original tune until it was pointed out at me.

Extras:
Comes with Actor Commentaries, Outtakes (thirty-three minutes of ‘em), clean opening and closing with samples from the Manga by VIZ media. Unfortunately the Manga samples are a little hard to read when in standard definition format that comes on a DVD.

Bottom line:
Generally entertaining for the first half of the series then begins to lose some of it’s charm. It’s worth checking out to enjoy yourself, though you might find yourself bored by the time the ending hits.

Gurren Lagann Short Review:
When I heard Gainax put out another anime that was hailed as the next big thing I was immediately skeptical knowing my .500 average with me liking whatever they put out. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is their latest offering prompting me to take a second look at my average. Let me do the run-down for you. It’s your standard Super Robot anime but we’ve upgraded to digital animation and bigger…um…eyes. But all the classic themes and characters are accounted for, disillusioned main character, eccentric support fellow, the bleeding heart, the princess love interest, the suspiciously feminine male engineer and a complete disregard for every law of physics and chemistry. Is the series good though? Well I think it’s great. There are a few minor complaints but in general the pacing for the series is incredibly good building up from small time nobodies to the saviors of the universe. On that note, character development is very good with characters being very intuitive and being very intelligent about their environment and the situations they are in. Generally very entertaining with points of comedy brilliance and an absolutely spectacular climax it is definitely worth a watch.

Then the game gives you a quick tutorial on the jumping mechanic then kills you. To be honest when I first saw the direction for this cutscene I couldn’t help but wonder what Dante (the guy you play as) has in his ears. The dude who stabs you in the back with a knife makes a ton of noise coming up to you yet you shrug it off, collapse and then death appears. Now when I looked at this and started fighting him I immediately thought this was one of those “supposed to loose” fights. Turns out it isn’t, but for Altana’s sake EA could you not fall into the Final Fantasy XI syndrome of making fights take too long? The fight against death takes over ten minutes to do between having to guard and counterattacking while dealing with the moving platform you’re both on and a camera that’s not controllable with no lock on system you begin to think is this game really too hard on the second easiest difficulty? (Four in total) Now a ten minute boss fight I expect on the hardest setting, not on second easiest. I’m too lazy to replay the demo on easy to see the difference (if there even is one) so I’m just going to leave it there.

Eventually you cheat death and steal his scythe to replace your halberd. Come home to see your sexy wife to tell her that the crusades are a lie and you find out your family has been murdered and then the fun part begins on why this game is rated M. See, when you see your wife, her dress is half open revealing her breast and to top that off she has a sword stuck in her gut. No blood curiously, but then her soul escapes from her mouth and you’re treated to a face full of soul boobies. Now, I heard God of War does something along these lines, but this is the first I’ve seen of this much nudity in a video game that isn’t designed for it (in other words, not a Hentai or Eroge game). And thus begins an epic tale of…actually, I’m not quite sure. The description I gave is rather detailed of the demo, but the problem I have is that there isn’t a whole lot of backstory given. Not giving the backstory can be okay at times, but giving too little makes you wonder what the character’s motivations are other than it’s his very good looking wife. Also he has sewn a leather cross onto his entire torso for who knows what reason. Lots of questions here.

So when I first played this game it came across as a hack and slash with some RPG elements just like every other game to date. However the game includes a really poorly done dodge mechanic. You see, when doing a dodge I want something like what’s out of Dissidia: Final Fantasy. When I use the dodge move with the stick idle you jump backwards, left and right appropriately does a circle-strafe jump and when pressing forward you leap and flip over your opponent. Sounds easy right? Well in Dante’s Inferno you have to use the right stick which in combat gets to be a real problem switching from the dodge stick to the attack button. Armored Core 4 and 4A both have this problem where the buttons are needed to attack and the sticks are to move with the triggers constantly needed to be used to move faster than a brisk jog that a 10m tall hunk of metal can do. Ironically I was just talking to Ultimaknight about this very same problem of controls becoming too complicated for the average person to use. This is something I refer to as “The Counter-Strike Effect” where the developers assume every person is a twitch player and has reflexes that puts light to shame. No. This doesn’t work for me.

Lastly I should mention the level up system and how awful the idea is. See, in order to skill yourself you have to beat up dudes and stuff to collect souls but that’s not the problem. The problem is in order to level up skills under the either holy (Magic Cross that serves as your projectile attack) or unholy (Death’s scythe) you have to grapple an enemy and rapidly mash a button. Now I hate button mashing like this for the reason my hands aren’t exactly muscular and this hurts after a while. In fact, I got an old toy out of an old board game called Knock-out called the Rammer Hammer so I could skip these sorts of events just by placing the hammer over the button and pressing a different button so it does the mashing for me. But the problem isn’t so much the button mashing is how long it takes. If you need to gain holy or unholy EXP you need to spend five seconds doing this and during the entire time you’re wide open. No this sort of grind is pointless and should have been scrapped. Oh and on that subject, the game also suffers from a case of the quick-time events like how Star Wars: The Force Unleashed does them. When are people going to drop these events because they are annoying to do?

I can also mention something else. Army of Two: The 40th Day’s demo hit too. Played it and while it’s still as non-appealing as the original was, I really have to ask what the point of me logging in with my EA account is. I don’t work well with over the shoulder shooters so I generally avoid them.

I’m going to skip the back-story to this post and just jump right to it’s throat. Let’s examine the phrase first without the contraction. “I am a cancer survivor”. We can view this a couple of different ways. Let’s start with one you are probably not thinking of and it is “I am a cancer and survivor”. Well, obviously the person says they are a cancer and a survivor. Which means they probably need purging because I don’t want a cancer of a person, especially of the ignorant kind. Let’s look at it a different way then. “I am a cancer survivor” So you admit that your cancer is still within you and still thriving. What was the point of telling me this?

But really what this phrase is is a label. A label that says “Hey look at me! I had something bad happen to me! Feel sympathy for me!” No. It just does not work that way. You are a worthless attention seeker who thinks that because something happened to you you deserve recognition. You do not. We all have our problems, you are not special. That being said, the next person who comes up to me saying I’m a survivor of something is going to get the following response: “I have a friend who has died at the hands of extremists in the military and you want me to care about your little problem why?” Then I can go into the idea of him dying to give you the right to boast about your insignificant problems. If you cannot get over something that has happened in your life, you will not be able to do anything worthwhile with it.

I don’t know if I’ll do a year in review post this time around, since there’s really nothing to review of interest.

Let’s roll back two years or so to the first thanksgiving I can remember after I went to college. Now I couldn’t stand this event because I was constantly ignored and talked over. Now, I tend to tell stories when I talk, but when I’m interrupted after three words after supposedly having the attention of the family it makes me totally wonder if they have ADD or just don’t care what I have to say. I eventually was just like “screw it” and left without saying any goodbyes while everyone was far too involved with karaoke. Eventually (about twenty minutes later) my phone rings and it’s my dad. I tell him to stop ignoring me then hang up. Wasn’t going to deal with that.

One year ago I had the brilliant idea of maybe we should play a game where everyone picks a song from a list and the rest of the group have to guess who picked what song. Worked out well, but the catch was I made everyone play their song on Guitar Hero III afterwards. Massive hilarity went off as absolutely no one except for I think Nicky’s boyfriend at the time could pass the cannot fail threshold. (For the unenlightened, turn the game on easy, play a song and totally screw it up in the beginning. Your crowd meter will not decrease until you pass a certain time.) While that was fun that’s about all we really got to do. I thought about it again this year, but never got to that point.

See, because of the strife between my family and I I was never invited to thanksgiving. I figure whatever, what’s the point of driving an hour, seeing people I’m very “meh” for lately and eating. Frankly, the idea of food is moot since it’s cheaper for me to stay home and eat what’s around than get in the car and spend the cash driving. But what really ticks me off is Debbie sent me this statement this morning: “We had a toast for you and said a prayer for you” Now why in fuck do I not believe that statement for any fraction of time? Oh that’s right. She’s an asshole to me. I said screw that and promptly threw the message out.

But I did actually see some family yesterday. Yesterday morning Stephanie (who is only distantly related to me, she is the Niece of Debbie) was rolling through town on her way back to Michigan so we got together and had breakfast at Denny’s. We had pleasant conversation and I learned about what she did for a living. Was kind of short but it was good to catch up while we could. I still think that Denny’s undercooks all their eggs though. Even slicing the whites causes them to bleed all over.

Before I got too far I had to go see the Department of Social Services that day too. Tell me, why is black Friday a state holiday and everything is closed for them? Gee.

Later that afternoon Johnny came by and we went to a pizza joint somewhere on the hill. Hell, I passed by his old dorm on the way to it. The problem we had though is while he loved the place, he didn’t foresee that there would be a basketball game that night too. Hell. Either way, we got some food, sat in the car and had conversation. I poured my feelings and he gave me a little encouragement, but even now I still feel like a wreck. My brother and I get along very well for our own reasons. I guess it’s because money has never gotten between us.

Unrelated, I guess I could say something about another girl I know from high school. Not the one from two entries ago, but a different one. I was talking to her about thanksgiving and how I wasn’t invited home and she was like “I’m sorry” and stuff. While I think she apologizes for a little too much stuff that’s not in her control, I get the feeling she was sincere about this one. Then she said something that made me twitch. Not because it made me mad at her (it didn’t) but it gave me some rationale for something he said. “Maybe he doesn’t hate you but instead is ashamed” Makes me think like she could be on to something. Hey, my dad is the worst kind of Christian. Well…maybe not the worst, he does somewhat accept evolution and big bang, but at times I think he does hate me for being the most vocal Atheist among all of the children (which I know in my bloodline are all Atheists). I am nothing short of a scientist in my own right where he is an indoctrinator. He teaches religious education at a church of his to boot.

And people wonder why I am Zero Serenity of my own lineage, not of another’s.

Let’s start with my dad because he’s so close to me. I also have the feeling his hatred is returned. See, I am an atheist and he is the worst kind of conservative christian, but that’s just a hunch as for why he doesn’t like me. Originally I had slated to go to his wedding, so I went, stayed for some pictures and was like “I gotta get out of here.” Why I did I’m not clear on anymore. I went upstairs, changed from my tux and back into my street clothes. I walked out of the venue (Hotel Utica) and made a mad dash for my buddy Josh’s house. I get there, we hang, play some Halo 2 (if that’s an idea how long ago this was) and I sleep. Next morning arrives, I go to the hotel and nobody acts like I’ve been gone. I was supposed to be sitting with my dad and nobody bothered to call my cell phone. So we get home after the elaborate second round (my father is remarried, his wife is on her third) and suddenly my dad is all in an uproar. According to him, while I was at Josh’s house I managed to get to his computer, on it and get all his tax information. What the hell kind of conclusion is this? Eventually he was all set to call the cops. I finally talk him out of it and this is the start of his downfall.

Second, back when I still had a key to his house, he decided he wanted it back. Now that’s rather mean in my situation since I technically live there too. So I refuse and he decides it’s a good idea to sabotage my car (Cutlass). Can he ever let shit go? It’s my house too, you don’t sabotage my car when you want it to yourself.
Lately he’s been worse. I was commissioned to build a website for his wife’s new business and I gave him the condition of “I will do it for free as long as you let me use it in my portfolio.” He agreed and I whipped something together while clashing with Debbie (that’s her name) about the details of what looks good and what will produce hits. Eventually she decides that since the site isn’t done (since she never responded with what I asked for) she wants to go with someone else and I’m out money and time. She wanted the domain but I decided that since I was never paid for any of it, I refuse. We go back and forth and she calls the police on me. I explain what the law is about it (for the unenlightened, the domain is in my name, there is no pages on the site that implicate I am her so the domain rightfully stays with me) and get the officer to let me off. She then quips back with this email: “You want to know why you’re single? If there were two of you, there would still be only you.” Now this sealed the deal. Nobody who wants to treat me with love and respect like a family would ever say that to them. A put down? Yes. Supportive? Far from it.

At this point I’ve decided that Debbie has practically kidnapped and manipulated my father into whatever she desires and apparently it’s to bring me to ruin.

My mom on the other hand has been slightly as bad. I mean, we made up already, but let me just surmise by saying if you’re family or friends, do not expect tech support from me the moment you want it, I just have to get to it and if I even think you deserve it.

Let’s move on to an old high school friend. While we were slated to go to Otakon together, she kinda went missing the morning we left. I called her and got nothing so I went to my buddy Kevin who gave me her boyfriend’s number. I call him up, see if he knew anything and got no answer. Said screw it and just left without her. When I get back, she’s all pissed off because I called her boyfriend because I was concerned about where she was and now she has pretty much excommunicated me. I’m loosing friends too fast. I feel lonely.

Let’s see…online life. I’ve been totally disinterested in Final Fantasy XI lately. I don’t know if it’s because Modern Warfare 2 hit the deck or just having very few people to really do stuff with in there. My linkshell is falling apart and the world I’m on (Fairy) is basically at it’s wit’s end. I think I might have been better off on Odin. But the problem with that is the girl I mentioned in this post seems to hate me since I’ve been inquisitive about getting with her yet she has not given me any definite answers. I liked her-no, I think I loved her. I feel betrayed whereas a buddy of mine couldn’t have just told me when I saw him last month that he was involved with her. I do know when to keep my hands off, but only when I’m told. I can’t pick up hints for stuff like this. The only way I will ever know is if someone just beats me over the head with it. I decided to do a little social manipulation for the truth, but all it did was make her hate me and spread lies about me. I am unclear as to the complete truth still, but as I dig and dig I just keep coming across more and more dirt that makes me think there’s a whole lot more going on than I can figure out. It’s making me sick.

I don’t want to go to work today.

I got my box and rushed home. Here we go!

Let’s open this beast up.

Quite an elaborate box.

And the game case.

The goggles.

But seriously, does this really require all these fasteners and tape?

Finaly out. Takes 5 AA batteries to boot.

So I had to try this thing. At first I kept thinking will this thing fit around my glasses. Turns out not only does it, but it does farily well. I had to loosen the headstrap a bit but they’re pretty cool. Quite effective, but they have the major problem of your field of view being hampered along with depth perception being tossed to the wind. Still pretty fucking cool though.

Then of course, gimmie head!

In pieces no less, hanging out with my PSP.

Now on the rack.

Perfect with goggles.

Now to actualy play this epic beast.